A Mom's 12 Days of Christmas: Second Day

On the Second Day of Christmas my children gave to me...

Two nasty colds,

And a tin of magnetic poetry!

For those [one] individuals who actually read this, yes I'm doing the 12 Days of Christmas AFTER Christmas. Why? Because that's when they happen! Contrary to cultural belief, they are the twelve days between Christmas and Twelfth Night, which is the eve of Epiphany.

Also, I am slightly delirious from lack of sleep.

The Seriousness of Poetry

Setting: A poetry workshop at Calvin College's Festival of Faith and Writing. Fourteen attendees and one facilitator sit in plastic chairs arranged into a lopsided circle.

Attendees have just finished their first writing exercise.

Facilitator: We've all had sixty seconds. Shall we read what we've created? Let's hear three or so, then pause to consider what stands out most ...

Reader #1: (coughs a bit, reads quietly) Lake Michigan ... sand dunes ... swim on wide feet ... out over the river ... it would be lovely ... like a highway map ... on the palm of your hand.

(attendees sigh and nod appreciatively)

Reader #2: (run together) Tulips and traffic of dunes in Peg and Bill's diner open as a book past the glowing compost of my mind.

(attendees nod and sigh, but appear slightly confused)

Reader #3: (clears throat) Electricity. (clears throat again, dramatically, and begins to read in epic poetry slam style) The glow ... of pollen ... on the fallen darkness of my soul ... is ... not ... a thing ... for ...

(As Reader #3 reads, the door opens and Latecomer enters. She moves toward a seat quietly.)

Reader #3: (continuing unbroken) the squeamish. (pause as if drums are beating the rhythm of the poem) Electricity ... far from dusk ... into

(Reader #3 stops abruptly as Latecomer enters the circle of chairs. All attendees look at Latecomer. The attention makes Latecomer nervous and awkward. She drops her umbrella, trips over someone's bag.)

(Reader #3 watches Latecomer even after she is settled in her chair. For several beats, Reader #3 continues to stare at Latecomer.)

Reader #3: (Clears throat to return to reading. Latecomer shifts her position, causing Reader #3 to stop and fix her with a stare once more. Finally, Reader #3 begins. From the beginning.) Electricity. (clears throat again, dramatically, and begins to read once more in epic poetry slam style) The glow ... of pollen ... on the fallen darkness of my soul ... is ... not ... a thing ... for ...  the squeamish. Electricity ... far from dusk ... into dusk ... (growing quieter and more dramatic) into dusk ... into dusk ... into ... dusk ... in ... to ... ... dusk.

Facilitator: (Over the final syllable.) Very good, so what do we notice about these selections? 

(Attendees begin talking at once, the tension in the air evaporating except for Reader #3 who glares fixedly at Latecomer until lights out.)

The other workshop I attended was on playwriting. Can you tell?

Books About Halibut, or not

Halistones and Halibut Bones by Mary O'Neill. Doubleday, 1961 (republished w/ new illustrations in 1989) affiliate link.

I absolutely love this book. Here is another homeschool resource, one I used time and again when I “assisted” with a homeschool coop class on writing. It made the notion of metaphor come alive, along with personification, vivid detail—really everything I wanted to teach in that class could have come from this book.

I, of course, was not the lead teacher, so the children got lessons on what they “ought” and “ought not” write about (children being naughty, unless they are punished, was one “ought not”) which left me steaming, but alas at least I got to read, again, these beautiful poems!

What’s not to love? The first poem, “What is purple?” starts,

Time is purple
just before night
when most people
turn on the light, 

and describing purple as a “great grandmother to pink” is just lovely. Gorgeous, educational book.

Our Egypt Diorama (speaking of education!)

RUMInations

Thirteenth century ecstatic poet, Jelaluddin Rumi, has been part of my daily literary meal of late. Sandwiched in time between St. Francis of Assisi and Meister Eckhart, Rumi's mysticism is stunningly present, green and alive. Qualities I strive to live: presence, awareness of all that lives around me.

For example, today the undergrowth in the forest went from swollen gray sticks to pale green and vibrant crimson, with sprinklings of white and yellow. What seemed dead yesterday was only dormant. A month or so ago I noticed the fragile stems of apple trees at the orchard had plumped and reddened. I couldn't see it when I looked straight on, but against the backdrop of snow, as I walked past, the trees were obviously changing, awakening.

As I've planned this rug, I've kept lines of a Rumi poem in my mind:

Lord, the air smells good today,
straight from the mysteries
within the inner courts of God.
A grace like new clothes thrown
across the garden, free medicine for everybody.
The trees in their prayer, the birds in praise,
the first blue violets kneeling.
Whatever came from Being is caught up in being, drunkenly
forgetting the way back.

I want to be "caught up in being", and that is one grace of hooking. I cannot hook fast, I cannot hook without looking at the world, I cannot hook without feeling the color of each and every strip of wool as it slips between my fingers.

Some of my initial sketches and color plans including the very first where I copied the Rumi poem from a source now unremembered:

And a warm thank you to Mary Logue for suggesting I might find Rumi inspiring. As always, she was right.

That's Just Plain Nonsense, Eddie

The Complete Nonsense of Edward Lear. by Edward Lear and edited by Holbrook Jackson Dover, 1951.

Lear was the youngest of 21 children and was brought up by his sister, who cared for him until he was nearly 50. He was an eternal child with “invincible boyishness,” according to the editor. This collection contains several works from 1846-1895.

Random thoughts:

These are so like the jokes my kids make up—so un-funny that they’re funny. A woman playing harp with her chin. Ha! They make me want to rhyme and be silly. Some have double meaning, like a person of Leeds with a head full of beads who eats gooseberry fool. And Lear uses great words like scroobious, dolorous; he embraces the absurd and violent—characters file off thumbs or kill a flea on their knee with a hatchet. Others are most un-politically correct, which I always appreciate.

For a time there’s a theme of going and not coming back (perhaps around the time of his sister’s death?). The short stories are like dreams of free association. He employs repetition like a picture book author might, but with horrendously creepy elements: story of seven young of various animals and all die awful deaths until the parents pickle themselves. Um, lovely!

The Nonsense Cookery is hysterical as are the visual puns in the Botany. He has fun rhymes for the Alphabet. I notice the limericks get more sophisticated in his later work. Rhymes are frequently brilliant, and this without the benefit of rhymezone.com!

My favorite on p. 205: “There was an old man in a garden/who always begged every-one’s pardon;/when they asked him, “what for?” – he replied “you’re a bore!”/And I trust you’ll go out of my garden.” I can imagine Lear writing this on a particularly grumpy day.

Is Lear an influence on Dr. Seuss, I wonder? He has some critters chopping up a Sage because they need sage for a recipe. HAHAHA!

The final alphabet points to some rather obvious Father issues.

Exquisite Poetry for Two Voices

Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices by Paul Fleischman. 1988

This is a Charlotte Zolotow book, which is no surprise. Such lovely language, metaphor, all the poetic devices one learns in school. I don’t read music, but this reads like I imagine music to be read—heard in my head, both voices blending, pulling apart, coming together.

Fleischman made use of point of view by getting in the heads of bugs. Most vivid, the differing views of life between worker and queen bee (even if a mite predictable). And on the more unexpected side, the water strider analogy to the biblical walking on water miracle was beautifully done.

Collection of Poems, linked

Carver: A Life in Poems by Marilyn Nelson. Front Street, 2001.

Would it be admitting ignorance to say I don’t like poems I don’t understand? I mean, I sort of understand “The Perceiving Self,” but I mostly don’t. It makes me wonder if the purpose of poetry is to communicate, to feel smart, to make your reader feels unsmart ...

“[T]ouched our stamens/pleasured us with pollen.” Obviously sexual, but what to do with a lynching? Other images in that one confuse me too. Am I too dense to read poetry? 

I do love the artistry and form of this book: poems from various perspectives all drawing a picture of Carver and the world in which he lived. The sad truth: I had to Google Carver to make sense of the poems (I dimly remembered his name being related to peanuts from some lesson in preschool—my lord, preschool!). Thank God for Wikipedia. 

I wish Nelson had found some way to contextualize the poems for those of us who are a. young (since this is in the junior nonfiction section), b. products of the modern educational system, c. missed a lot of school (literally or metaphorically) even if a and b are not the case, or d. are just plain ignorant. 

Lovely words, lovely poems, but the poems are sort of like single petals of a yellow flower. We don’t know if we have a daisy or a dandelion. And how we understand and appreciate the flower depends upon where we find it: a garden, the lawn, a clogged downspout. “His students/see the light of genius/through the dusky window of his skin”—beautiful petals, but of what? Where? Many stunning poems like, “From an Alabama Farmer.” But the title says it’s a life in poems. Somehow I missed the life, found only poems.

Nelson's other book for this age group however, Fortune's Bones, is among my favorites of all time.

A Keeper of Dreams

The Dream Keeper and Other Poems by Langston Hughes. Knopf, 1932, 1994.

Reminiscent of Hailstones and Halibut Bones with the imagery and simplicity. All the poems employ specific and unique language, and often surprise with contrasting images like the sea being like a desert of waves or new leaves singing in the rain.

Incredible rhythm in the blues set. “And the beauty of Susanna Jones in red/Burns in my heart a love-fire sharp like pain./Sweet silver trumpets,/Jesus!” Amen to that!

Interesting, too, how varied the poems are. Universal, global, modern somehow, despite being three quarters of a century old.

I wish I lived on Neighborhood Street!

Night on Neighborhood Street by Eloise Greenfield. Dial, 1991.

The illustrations feel sort of 1970s (which is odd given the pub date); makes it seem dated. The poems, however, give snapshots into life, like the “Little Boy Blues” which is a play on the musical blues and the Mother Goose rhyme. It’s tender and lovely with strong rhythm. “The Seller” and various other poems make me wonder if this book is for children or adults, though. There’s a sophistication that might be over the picture-book-reader’s head.

Reading Mishmash

My reading has had surprising continuity in recent months, though looking at the number of books actually checked off my TBR list you'd think I'd become an American Idol addict or something. No such luck. I've been rushing to fulfill the requirement of the MFA - 40 books of the 120 listed on their required bibliography - 40 read before my first residency, the rest in my first two semesters (along with reading for courses). And yet ... I can't seem to leave the library without a handful of non-required books. So now I have three annotated bibliographies going. One of required reading for the MFA, one of reading that could be related (i.e. children's books), and one for research or books that don't really fit anywhere else. Like Your Money Counts by Howard Dayton, or Parenting With Love and Logic by Cline and Fay.



Hopkins, Lee Bennet, editor. Wolf Erlbruch, illus. Oh, No! Where Are My Pants and Other Disasters: Poems. HarperCollins, 2005.


Beyond an overuse of exclamation points, this charming collection gets into a child's world without subtlety or subtext. The poems are funny, sad, simple, but not transportive. Most are nostalgic, words of an adult looking back. The illustrations, likewise, have a feel of nostalgia. A 1940s idyllicism. At the State Fair by Rebecca Kai Dotlich was one exception. "I stay very still/in this chandelier chair." captures the child's thinking in childlike words and, interestingly, this illustration is my favorite--it has more depth of meaning, more emotional expression than the others in the book.

Janeczko, Paul B., editor. Chris Raschka, illus. A Poke in the I: a Collection of Concrete Poems. Candlewick, 2001.

The artist in me absolutely loves this book. Raschka's use of color and texture, of negative space and shape exactly melds with the whole notion of visual poetry. A few that especially captured me: "A Weak Poem" in which the poem slants downward, falling over. "Easy Diver" in which a pigeon dives off the roof and lands gently on the ground. "Merging Traffic" in which the word traffic visually merges with the word merge. These poems are quick and clever, the melding of words and meaning, and they get at childhood in such a fabulous way. Finally, "Tennis Anyone?" involves the reader's whole body, not just her eyes, as she turns her head to read from one page to the next and back again, as if she's watching a game of tennis. Brilliant. This is now likely one of my all-time favorite books of poetry.

Song of the Waterboatman

The Song of the Waterboatman and other Pond Poems by Joyce Sidman. Houghton Mifflin, 2005.

Stunning illustrations. And lovely poems. I’m not sure they capture essence as well as Zolotow. I’m perhaps looking for an Annie Dillard of children’s poetry, but maybe Sidman is more accessible to a child than Zolotow (who is more Dillardy).

• --The Caddis Fly is fascinating and I love the use of the word whorled. What a cool word!
• The NF sidebars are clear and concise, but I found myself wishing they were a little more lyrical.
• Colors used in the illustration for Season’s Campaign are delicious. I wanted to roll in them, to wake up there. That poem reminds me of an eternal favorite and classic, Hailstones and Halibut Bones.
• Water Bear is fascinating too. This is why macro-evolution takes far more faith than I can muster.

Little Girls in Two Straight Lines

Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmans. 1939.

Sweet Matisse-like illustrations with a strong plot. Madeline is characterized as being fearless, but she cries at her pain (her appendix!), so the severity of her illness is obvious. Everyone’s concern for her is touching and makes boarding school a little less lonely.

The rhyme is more organic than sing-song, which greatly enhancing read-aloud pleasure. 

The commentary on cultural expectations for girls brought out in Inside Picture Books (Yale Nota Bene) (Spitz) was interesting, however. I too had noted the slight phallic nature of the nuns, but I thought it was just me.

Bronzeville Boys and Girls: Poetry and Art

Bronzeville Boys and Girls by Gwendolyn Brooks. HarperCollins, 1984.

Poems that celebrate childhood.

Brooks’ highly regional poems have universal appeal, transcending race and place. Who hasn’t felt as Rudolph has in, “Rudolph is Tired of the City”? And nearly every child has had the short-lived goldfish as in “Skipper”.

The poems, however, felt uneven, straining for rhyme and rhythm at times with unnatural sentence structures. Other times maintaining a smooth flow. “Beulah at Church” for example faltered in the final line, and “Eppie” seems to fizzle. But “Eldora Who is Rich” works both in rhythm and surprise. Perhaps my ear is poorly tuned for poetry, although even I couldn’t help but note and love “DeKover” and the “dancy little thing” of a star.